Category: QRP

WSPR analysis of an EFHW and a Dipole With only a little time for radio this month I decided to use the excellent WSPRlite from SOTABeams to compare my two staple SOTA (portable) aerials; the 3 band linked dipole and 3 band End Fed Half Wave (EFHW) (which uses SOTABeams pico traps rather than links). I […]

MTR4B I was very fortunate to receive an early version of the LNR Precision MTR4B (Mountain Topper Radio) which is available in the UK & Europe fromDennis at Kanga UK. The MTRs are a pretty amazing family of radios and the MTR4B is a four band version that introduces 80m as standard along with simpler band […]

Tripple SOTA activation in Snowdonia I’d been watching the weather forecast for most of March waiting for a few days of good weather to attempt a triple SOTA (Summits on the Air) activation in Snowdonia and, on 24th March 2017 I saw a gap in the weather that looked perfect for a flying visit. Accommodation […]

SOTA activation with MTR5B and EFHW It’s been a bit of a SOTA extravaganza this month starting with a cheeky activation of my local summit (G/SE-001 Walbury Hill) to record a video of a CW SOTA activation using the MTR5B and EFHW. At the end of February I took my annual pilgrimage with James, […]

Straight key week came and went with almost no contacts this year. From the shack I used my lovely Marconi copy but the shack is often just a few degrees in temperature at this time of the year so I moved back indoors to operate from my bed! Operating the Air Ministry’s Type D on […]

As a SOTA enthusiast I’m aways looking for mays to minimise the size of my station and had experimented with End Fed Half Wave (EFHW) aerials in the past but with a matching unit that included an inductor and a variable capacitor I found it super sensitive to the proximity of the ground, trees and […]

It Summer vacation time so managed to squeeze in a couple of SOTA summits; Mynydd Carningli (GW/MW-033) in Wales. I hiked up from the waters edge in Parrog making this a half days activation. There’s very little space at the summit and a school outing had taken over when I arrived so I had to […]

Not a huge amount of radio going on this month although I did take the KX1 and a random wire with me to Italy and managed to work back to the UK…thanks G4XRV. I gave a presentation to the Reading & District Amateur Radio Club on promoting the hobby. The Reading Club has some really […]

This month I tweaked the tuning of my SOTA linked dipole to give me greater coverage on 40m. I now have an SWR of <1.7:1 across 20, 30 & 40m…now I’m ready for some Summer SOTA action :o) I’ve managed to achieved both my Worked all @lids (WALIDS) Bronze award and collected my first FISTS Millionaire […]

This month I rediscovered my Elecraft K1, a little gem of a radio and the first quality kit that genuinely gave me a fully featured and high performing CW transceiver. When I originally built it I had aerials for 80m & 20m so I built it to cover these two bands. Now I almost exclusively operate […]